Ciano’s Gallante Cooks Huge Legumes, Great Lasagna: Ryan Sutton

Malloreddus pasta with dungeness crab, speck and bottarga di muggine at Ciano in New York. Shea Gallante is the chef at the eatery, located at 45 East 22nd Street in Manhattan. Photographer: Paul Goguen/Bloomberg

Feb. 9 (Bloomberg) -- Shea Gallante, that fancy chef who
once served salmon hidden under a cloak of horseradish foam, has
decided it’s time to sell beans, meatballs and lasagna.

Gallante used to work at Cru, a stodgy bastion for wine
geeks. He moved on to Bouley, where I experienced a series of
excellent, albeit very extended three-hour lunches and four-hour
dinners at romantic banquettes.

So I was surprised to find that Ciano isn’t just another
excellent restaurant with Italian food. Someday, it might even
rival Babbo, Marea or Ai Fiori. It’s already attracting crowds.

Those beans! Giant legumes surround a sweet-and-sour stick
of pork rib. Eat it with your hands.

The firm noodles are just cooked through enough to absorb
the basil pesto and meaty white Bolognese. This is the romantic,
rustic, grandmotherly side of Gallante, who trained under Lidia
Bastianich, a matriarch of regional Italian cooking in America.

The front room looks like any other Gramercy Park
trattoria, though the crowded bar is more civilized than usual.
You can converse at reasonable decibels.

Gone are amuse-bouches, petits fours, intermezzos and the
absurdly alcoholic Bouley-style wines-by-the-glass pairings.
Beverage director John Slover sells almost every bottle by the
half, allowing for judicious imbibing.

No Vegetarians

Junior investment bankers will find it an ideal second date
restaurant, complete with dining room fireplace. Corner
banquettes are strictly for closers.

Leave vegetarians at home -- all but one pasta has meat or
fish. While eggplant ravioli sounds healthy, the filling is
enriched with housemade lardo. Gallante dissolves smoky nduja
(spreadable sausage) into the sauce below. The perfectly porky
dish tastes nothing like eggplant.

Boneless lamb chops balance musk with meatiness; a puree of
dates, garlic and red wine tames a gargantuan veal loin. Even
raw tuna is larded with bone marrow and topped with caviar.

Ciano caters to refined carnivores. There’s no steak on the
menu; rather, the most expensive dish is chicken for two ($49).
The delicate preparation involves steaming the bird in a clay
pot. The two skinless breasts are far from boring, infused with
an obscenely nutty alfalfa hay.

This is the complicated, fussy side of Ciano, where
Gallante’s French training comes through in all its obsessive-compulsive glory.

Like Bouillabaisse

He takes sea bream, and rather than just adding salt, mixes
trout roe for a hint of brine, blood orange for sweetness and
celery heart leaf for bitterness. Saffron aioli makes the whole
thing taste like bouillabaisse. No flavor is overwhelmed.

Ciano isn’t perfect. Many will prefer the quieter
atmosphere of Ai Fiori or Alto. Conservative types will argue a
fine-dining chef shouldn’t be making haute riffs on red sauce
classics like lobster fra diavolo -- Gallante’s version is too
sweet, too chewy. Never mind.

Finish with an apple Napoleon and welcome to the
neighborhood what may be Manhattan’s next great Italian joint.

Rating: ***

The Bloomberg Questions

Price: Pastas under $20; Entrees under $40; $90 tastings.

Sound Level: Around 70-75; Never too loud.

Date Place: There’s a fireplace.

Inside Tip: Killer rock shrimp poplette.

Special Feature: Great grilled focaccia that’s gently
blackened by the hearth.

51 to 55: Church on a weekday. 56 to 60: The vegetable aisle at
the Food Emporium. 61 to 65: Keyboards clacking at the office.
66 to 70: My alarm clock when it goes off inches from my ear. 71
to 75: Corner deli at lunchtime. 76 to 80: Back of a taxi with
advertisements at full volume. 81 to 85: Loud, crowded subway
with announcements.

(Ryan Sutton writes about New York City restaurants for
Muse, the arts and leisure section of Bloomberg News. The
opinions expressed are his own.)